28 THE VULTURE. 



river to the place where we were, in a direction quite 

 opposite to the trade-wind. My Indians knew by 

 this that other Indians were encamped for the night 

 on the river-side above us. 



When the eruption took place in the Island of St. 

 Vincent, in the Caribbean Sea, in 1812, cinders and 

 other minor particles of matter were carried nearly, 

 if not fully, 200 miles to windward, and were said to 

 have fallen at or near Barbadoes. Had there been 

 a carcass, in a state of decomposition, at the place 

 during the time of the eruption, no doubt the efflu- 

 vium arising from it would have been taken to wind- 

 ward by a temporary counter-aerial current ; and a 

 vulture in Barbadoes might probably have had pretty 

 certain information, through his olfactory nerves, 

 that there was something good for him in the Island 

 of St. Vincent. 



Vultures, as far as I have been able to observe, 

 do not keep together in a large flock, when they are 

 soaring up and down apparently in quest of a tainted 

 current. Now, suppose a mule has just expired 

 behind a high wall, under the dense foliage of ever- 

 green tropical trees ; fifty vultures, we will say, roost 

 on a tree a mile from this dead mule : when morn- 

 ing comes, off they go in quest of food. Ten fly by 

 mere chance to the wood where the mule lies, and 

 manage to spy it out through the trees ; the rest go 

 quite in a different direction. How are the last- 

 mentioned birds to find the mule ? Every minute 

 carries them farther from it. Now reverse the state- 

 ment ; and, instead of a mule newly dead, let us 

 suppose a mule in an offensive state of decompos- 



